A Hero's Rest
by Wolfsblood-138
Summary: With the darkness of his past behind him, an old Hero finally passes on in the place he holds most dear.


He walked the roads of Albion with nothing but the wind and nature by his side. A lone man with no course in life, his last strand of hope left far behind him, burning in the distance. Bowerstone had turned its back on him and his kind, and the fortress of the Guild was divulging into something he couldn't stand any longer. Taking what gold he needed, the old man went and changed his name to Ranger. Walking off towards the south, he had made it to the lake at Greatwood's heart. Traders wandered around the area, bandits came now and again. Nobody troubled him, they thought nothing of his presence. He didn't seem anyone special, not in his tattered grey robes.

It would be impossible for one to think that this wretched old drifter was once feared as the great and powerful Reaper. Champion of the Arena, Slayer of Jack, Husband of Bowerstone, Lover of the Lady Grey, and most importantly of all, Heir of the Archon. Ranger had been a very important man in his youth, until the deaths of all around him. His blood kept him alive for too long, and so he learned to detach himself from everything. It had been nearly two hundred years since Jack fell, and all that this old man wanted was to return to his home.

Oakvale. The small town that sat on the shimmering coastline of southern Albion, looking out into those foreboding waters, where pirates and traders sailed free. Many a tale was passed in Oakvale of the Great Hero who had arisen from poverty in that small village, only to unite Albion once more to bring down the tyranny of Jack of Blades. How he missed his childhood and the days he would run along that golden beach with his bare feet, the nights spent playing hide and seek in the pumpkinpatch, playing pranks on the guards at the Barrow Fields, and always forgetting his sister Theresa's birthday, no matter how many times he tried to remember.

Such a fun youth he had been, always seeming to cause trouble, though. His wrinkled face formed a smile at just the simple thought of that place. He had saved up some gold to buy his old house from his childhood, and live there for as long as time would keep him. All Ranger was after was to die in peace, leave the Hero business to his daughter Danela. Last time he had seen her, she had been working as a sort of guard for Bowerstone, her mother's city. She was of the Grey family, and Ranger had disowned that lineage long ago. But she was the new Heir of the Archon.

Blue eyes looked back through ages to find the day the young woman was born. Naked, crying and pristine of sin. A beautiful baby with the same oceans in her eyes as her father, with a tinge of her mother's green. Those were the times when he was called Reaper, when he served darkness and pillaged with glee. Now, his beard had greyed and his soul had grown flacid. No longer did he wish death on others, no longer did he believe the tales of Skorm or Avo. And so he journeyed on.

That deep place in the Greatwood where the land sunk down to reach the swampy murk of Darkwood was where he stood now. Ghostly visions of his young adulthood haunted his eyes, a spectral spectacle of betrayal and disease. His greying white robes met the viscous liquids of the bog, tainting them with mud. He did not care, all he knew was that Oakvale lay but a day's journey forward, and he would never feel far from his happiness again. Where balverines once plagued and preyed, it was but fungus and some small pockets of Hobbes, which were harmless to someone as mystical and wisened as the old sage called Ranger.

"You there, old man," came the call of a familiar type of character, a bandit, "I don't want to hurt someone who reminds me of me granddad, so make this easy on yerself. All yer goldies put in my bag 'ere, see? Like I said, I ain't lookin' to cause ye no harm."

Ranger looked the young thief in the eyes, staring into his very soul. The bandit froze, feeling the haunting gaze of such a tormented old soul penetrating his very being. Ranger spoke up, "You will stand aside, lad. I don't want to be doing harm to one who needs not harm me."

"Bah!" the bandit shook off the terror of the gaze. "I'll cut that throat ah yours!"

Dagger in hand, the young man took charge, but Ranger didn't move. Not until the dagger was inches from the bridge of his nose. And at that second, he sideswept and the man fell, Ranger's foot holding him down. With such little effort, and little of the old man's strength, the bandit's face remained submerged in muck, and he drowned in sludge. Removing himself from the corpse, Ranger moved on, leaving the poor boy to corrode and decay in the haunted Darkwood.

Finally, he arrived in the golden fields of Oakvale, bathed in sunlight and wonder. Butterflies flew and songbirds chirped, it was a serene land. Traders mingled and beckoned to customers in the Barrow Fields below the hill on which Ranger stood. He made his way through the crowds of villagers making purchases from the tented salesmen and pressed on towards the town he had come seeking, the tiny village he called his home. It still glowed in the sun that he remembered, bathed in the rays of golden light that gave it that beautious hue he held dear in his dreams. He made his way up the path to the home of his youth, finding that it was still up for sale after so many years away from it. The old man sent for the landowner and purchased the building, moving in immediately to finally fulfill his final wish.

And so, with his cycle complete and his days as a Hero done, Ranger fell into an idyllic world of fantasy and magic. He withered away, and vanished into time, as a well-earned rest finally took his soul... forever...


End file.
